1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to remote control apparatuses and portable communication terminals. More specifically, the present invention relates to a remote control apparatus which remotely controls electronic appliances like a television, an air conditioning, etc., and a portable communication terminal endowed with such a remote control function.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an example of such a kind of conventional remote control apparatus, one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2005-244676 (Patent Document 1) is known. The related art displays a plurality of bounding boxes (tab) respectively corresponding to a plurality of electronic appliances to be remotely controlled. In each of the plurality of tabs, letters indicative of a name of the electronic appliance corresponding to the tab are described. With reference to the plurality of tabs thus displayed, it is possible to select a desired appliance out of the plurality of electronic appliances.
However, most of the electronic appliances to be operated by remote control like a television, an air conditioning do not accept a remote control operation unless at least main power supply is turned on (in an on state or a standby state). Accordingly, all the plurality of electronic appliances to be remotely controlled is not always in a remote controllable state.
However, in the related art of Patent Document 1, the plurality of tabs are displayed irrespective of a state of individual electronic appliance, and therefore, a useless remote control operation to an appliance in an uncontrollable state may forcedly be done.
Furthermore as an example of such a kind of conventional portable communication terminal, one disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-open No. 2003-78977 (Patent Document 2) is known. The related art has a plurality of buttons respectively corresponding to a plurality of electronic appliances, and stores a plurality of remote control codes respectively corresponding to the plurality of electronic appliances in a memory. When a button corresponding to a desired electronic appliance out of the plurality of buttons is pushed, a remote control code corresponding to the electronic appliance is read from the memory, and infrared rays corresponding to the read remote control code is sent. Thus, it is possible to remotely control the desired electronic appliance with the portable communication terminal.
However, in the related art of Patent Document 2, only the electronic appliance registered in advance can be remotely controlled while any of the registered appliances can remotely control electronic appliances with ease at even other's house.